Not Just Cookies and Crafts: Girl Scouts Get Schooled in Managing Cash

Not Just Cookies and Crafts: Girl Scouts Get Schooled in Managing Cash

Young Girl Scouts will be taught how to be whizzes in money matters.

-Diana Denza

Former Girl Scouts (as in, the approximately 50 million alumnae alive today!), you’ll be pleased to learn that young scouts are now being rewarded with badges for their financial smarts. The Telegraph reported that beginning at the fresh age of five, scouts will learn the importance of “budgeting, drawing up business plans, maintaining good credit, and cultivating customer loyalty,” stated Alisha Niehaus, a Girl Scouts spokesperson.

This means that in addition to becoming master cooks and campers, these 2.3 million little ladies will be working to become experts when it comes to mortgages and saving allowance money for college tuition.

Why the all the focus on cold hard cash? We have those delicious Girl Scout cookies and those not-so-amazing economic woes plaguing the country to thank for this overhaul. Threatened with a stark decline in its $714 million dollar a year cookie selling business, the gals in charge decided it was about time to teach future generations the importance of good financial decisions.

“The girls see what is going on in the world and they want to be prepared for success,” Niehaus told the Telegraph. “Our ethos is for girls to be able to run households, cities, and countries. This will start them out early.”

The new Budgeting, Financing My Future, and Good Credit badges are part of the Girl Scout’s recently revamped collection. And it’s not like these ladies change badges every few months, this was the very first redesign in a whopping 25 years, and took a number of years to complete.

To earn a badge, a scout must tackle a five-step test to prove her knowledge of a particular topic. For example, a high school junior and senior up for a Good Credit badge might have to meet with a bank loan officer as part of the badge-earning process. We know that’s no walk in the park for anyone let alone a young woman about to grapple with four years of college expenses.

It is also worthwhile to note that along with badges for being financially-savvy, girls will receive prizes for excelling in the arts (aspiring film-makers, your time is now!).

We’re expecting to see more than a few of these scouts leading the country in a couple of decades. Go, girls, go!